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Gingrich representatives campaign at Flagler College

Two surrogates for former U.S. Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign were at Flagler College on Sunday afternoon, making good on a pre-talk promise to discuss issues from “Facebook to Israel.”

A crowd of about 25 came to Flagler’s Ringhaver Student Center, engaging in a town-hall-style discussion with Mark Gembicki, the campaign’s chief information officer and cyber security surrogate, and Gingrich’s Veteran’s Surrogate Capt. Bill Wade.

The range of issues included exchanges with audience members on Gingrich’s proposal of moving an American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“But that’s going to alienate the rest of the Arab world,” a man in attendance said.

“Maybe,” Gembicki said.

“Not maybe; it will,” the participant said.

“We’ll see,” Gembicki said.

The surrogates said America missed an opportunity to split Iran’s uprising population from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during its 2009-10 Green Revolution by more strongly supporting mostly younger Iranians that generally like the West.

Gembicki is a longtime member of the Unites States intelligence community and specializes in threats of cyber terrorism.

He said he is more concerned with Iran’s cyber-terror capability and intent to use it against America than its nuclear armament program, though he said Iran’s weapons program is a growing threat.

Wade, an Army captain with nine deployments to war zones including Iraq and Afghanistan, said the United States missed a “small window” of opportunity to further fuel Iran’s revolt.

Wade called the U.S. political climate with Iran a “warm war,” saying the country’s intent to attack is greater than the former Soviet Union’s during the Cold War.

When questioned by another audience member, the two said a Gingrich policy as president would include greater economic sanctions against Iran.

Wade comes from a family of Democrats. His father is a county Democratic chair up north, he said. As a Republican, he said he was without a candidate until Gingrich impressed him early in the season’s tireless string of GOP debates.

“We’ve been at war 10 years,” Wade said. “I’m tired of war. I was tired of war five years ago.”

Wade said a smart foreign policy would include highly trained units at the ready but fewer bases around the world.

On the economy, Wade said his experience in Washington left him with the opinion that no matter which party was in power, the system was habitually flawed.

“One party would give handouts to one side of the aisle and the other would give handouts to the other side of the aisle,” he said.

Gembicki called the Gingrich-supported federal balanced budget amendment a “silver bullet” for the country, saying it would force politicians to campaign on lowering budgets instead of bringing projects to their districts and states.

The afternoon talk lasted for more than an hour and was the result of a last-minute request from Flagler College to the campaign, said Andrew Ogles, deputy director of surrogates.

Voting in the presidential preference primary is Tuesday.

Polls are to be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., according to the St. Johns County Supervisor of Elections.